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Monthly Archives: June 2011

So this past week I’ve been a bit busy with my internship and trying to survive in the trip digit weather in Davis. As a result, I slacked in the YouTube department (shocking AND sad), but it’s hard to focus on opening a tab and watching short clips when all I want to do is sleep because it’s the least physically demanding activity. However, I did have the time and concentration to watch these amazing clips!

The first one isn’t a new clip at all; in fact, it’s been around since the beginnings of YouTube and has been somewhat of an Internet meme, with various forms floating throughout the Internet (one of my favorite gifs is the Super Mario version of this dance). I happened to watch ‘Maury’ this past week and this led to an intense ‘Maury’ clip watching session on YouTube. This show used to be my after school entertainment for most of middle school and the beginning of high school and still remains as one of the most hilarious and entertaining hours on television. I still have trouble believing that Maury is married to renowned journalist Connie Chung. What do they talk about at the dinner table? So strange. Anyway, this video is one of the BEST moments on Maury ever, made even better by the addition of Outkast’s “The Way You Move.”

If you want more amazing Maury moments, do yourself a favor and check out the Holy Maury Mother of God tumblr. It’s a goldmine for Maury macros and gifs and it’s one of the best things on the Internet.

The next one occurred a few hours ago at the BET Awards. Basically, this girl, Tiffany Green, won a contest to present the Viewers Choice award and had to use the HTC Evo 4g tablet to announce the winner. There’s speculation that BET purposely put Chris Brown on the tablet, but had Rihanna’s name on the teleprompter in order to confuse her and drum up some publicity. Well, it worked because the moment is awkward. Drake came out to accept the award, but it’s still unclear who the actual winner is (Chris Brown? I don’t really care, to be honest). I love the face she makes at :43 and the repeated use of “This is awkward.”

The last video is also very recent. This past weekend, the Glastonbury Festival took place in lovely England and it’s been lots of fun watching all the performances online no, not really…it’s just made me even more jealous of everyone there. Beyonce closed out the festival Sunday night as the first female headliner in several years! She definitely proved herself as a worthy headliner by dancing, singing, and jumping all over the stage. During “Halo,” she briefly interacted with the crowd, much to the annoyance of her bodyguard who looked as though he was going to have a heart attack each time someone touched her. I spent an embarrassing amount of time watching her entire set on YouTube, some of the videos multiple times, but I am not ashamed to admit that I would’ve killed to see this in person! People may fault her for not writing her own songs or using a backing track, but you have to admit…GURL CAN PERFORM.

This is the Destiny’s Child/”Telephone” medley from the Glastonbury set and it’s so good. I wasn’t a huge fan of Destiny’s Child but a lot of their songs are insanely catchy and just fun to dance to. Plus it brings me back to the good ol’ days of the late 1990s/early 2000s. Look for the references to obsolete technology in “Bug a Boo.” It made me laugh. I wonder if those born post 1995 have any idea what she’s singing about?

You know how there are those days when all you want to do is sit on your couch and watch television for hours on end? Typically, this occurs after a hard day’s work at work/school or a chaotic week in which you barely had time to eat and sleep. There are times when sitting in front of the television and not having to worry about deadlines, projects, or exams sounds like paradise. Thankfully, the USA channel understands this and puts on Law and Order: SVU marathons at least twice a month.

As someone who finds more than enough time to sit on the couch and enjoy the thrilling adventures of Benson, Stabler, and company, I’ve managed to come up with a few things that any passive viewer should expect when tuning into Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (CHING-CHING!)

5. The first five minutes usually have absolutely nothing to do with the overall plot. Oh, what’s that – a hot couple about to go skinny-dipping at night in some nice fountain? BAM – there’s a dead woman floating in the water and we never hear from that nice couple again. Aww, how sweet! A girl teaching her dad how to rollerblade in the park! Oh, there he goes, tumbling into a nearby bush and into a dead body! Or how about how the children crossing the street find a suitcase containing a dead body and the crossing guard has to keep those curious kiddies away from the body? It’s just funny watching the writers come up with the most random people who just happen to stumble upon the victim. I’m sure this is how it happens in real life, but on the screen it seems so hastily put together. Sometimes it seems as if the writers always think about the first scene last and tack on the most random situations to transition into the main story. Oh well, it’s somebody’s five minutes of fame! If you’re not into finding the hilarity in sweet family scenes or hot couple scenes that quickly turn dramatic, then use the first few minutes to get some snacks or use the bathroom, because once you start a SVU episode, you will probably not want to get off that couch.

4. Watch for the witty side comments from Munch and Stabler. With all that suspense and drama, Law and Order: SVU has to lighten the mood somehow! Luckily, Christopher Meloni and Richard Belzer are always up for the task and drop snarky and hilarious one-liners when arresting or ambushing perps (pervs). Unfortunately I cannot embed the video, but here’s a video compilation of some great Munch lines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bmhp-i6OjE

Robin Williams on Law and Order: SVU

3. Celebrities flock to Law and Order: SVU when they want that juicier and darker role. Much like film actors who know that an Oscar nomination is guaranteed after taking a part that requires radical change, those on Just off the top of my head, I can list Hilary Duff, Martin Short, Robin Williams, and even Jesse McCartney (yes, he’s still out there) as some of the more recent guest stars on SVU. The best thing about having celebrity guest stars is that it makes the job of figuring out the culprit much easier. What would be the point of hyping up an upcoming appearance if Jesse McCartney was only playing the emotional boyfriend of a dead pregnant teenage girl? Exactly! That would be a waste of advertising money and I’m sure NBC would not want to be the victim of fangirl rage (that’s assuming that there are still enough McCartney fans out there; to be honest, I’m not sure as I stopped paying attention to him after 2003). Well, SPOILER ALERT – the girl was actually part of a pregnancy pact and was killed by our favorite “Beautiful Soul” singer in a jealous rage when he learns that she had slept with another guy from school in order to get pregnant. In short, if there’s a celebrity guest on an episode of Law and Order: SVU, you should probably suspect him or her first, unless they are the victim. Although, some of the best episodes have been the ones where the victims are, in some crazy twist, the ones whom we’ve should have been suspecting (more on that in a little bit).

2. Benson and Stabler have an enormous amount of sexual chemistry between them. Personally, my favorite pairing would have to be Finn (played by rapper Ice-T) and Munch. I suppose it’s the hilarity the results from pairing two people who seem to be polar opposites – a curmudgeonly Jewish man and a guy who used rap about killing the cops. Plus, the best lines usually come out of Munch’s mouth! But, back to our leading lady and her partner/should-be-boyfriend/soul mate and their frustrating “romance.” Recently, Christopher Meloni announced his departure from the show, leaving fans to wonder how the show will go on without their favorite angsty detective, but more importantly how Olivia will deal without Elliot as her partner will go on living without ever getting together with Elliot. Judging from the amount of Olivia and Elliot fan videos on YouTube, there must be a lot of disappointed Olivia/Elliot shippers out there. Law and Order: SVU has teased viewers with numerous occasions in which the two have been extremely close to getting it on (for example, Olivia pretending to be Elliot’s prostitute to save him from being outed as an undercover cop, or Olivia kissing nerdy technician Dale to “make him jealous”). Unfortunately, viewers will never get to see our favorite detectives kiss or do anything more together, and we’ll just have to make do with a well-edited fan video on YouTube. Here’s a good one:

1. It is always the person you least suspect. Whenever I watch an episode of SVU, I immediately begin guessing the perpetrator; usually it’s someone the detectives interview in the beginning or someone in the family of the victim. IT IS ALWAYS SOMEONE YOU LEAST SUSPECT. They may arrest a suspect early on in the episode, but chances are that person is some idiot who didn’t know what they were doing or they have more information leading to the actual perp. The show is an hour long, which means the writers need to fill that time with engaging twists and turns. Law and Order: SVU does a great job of taking the viewer through what can be a very complicated story. One of the best episodes I watched recently (when I really should have been studying for finals…) had a member of the forensics team as the killer! It was a great twist and proved that the show was capable of switching things up every now and again. Although there are times in which it’s much easier to guess the rapist/murderer/pedophile, it’s just fun and exciting to watch the SVU team tread through those complicated, and sometimes hilariously outrageous, stories.

This is the truth. I can waste hours on YouTube watching anything from tv show clips (if it hasn’t been taken down…) to concert videos (as painful and shaky as some of them may be) to old commercials from my childhood (I’m still stuck in the 90s).

Because it’s summer and I have more free time, I can watch EVEN MORE YouTube videos now! Well, to be honest, it’s not like school really stopped me before. Shameful, utterly shameful. Anyway, I’m going to try to make posts once a week with my favorite YouTube videos that I’ve found recently and hopefully other people who haven’t seen them already, will enjoy them too!

The Secret Life of the Disneyland Character aka “Tigger and Pooh Bear: Got Swag Cat Daddy at Disneyland!”
*the original video seems to have been pulled so this is a copy that has been re-uploaded

I love how these guys thought they were gonna Tigger all these moves and really it was the other way around.

Sqee aka “mini warbler performing to teenage dream”

Not a huge fan of Glee anymore, but who can resist a tiny kid singing ‘Teenage Dream’ almost as good as Darren Criss and his crew?

Harry Potter and OH-MY-GOD-SOMEONE-PASS-ME-THE-KLEENEX-ASAP aka “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II Final Trailer”

The film adaptations of Harry Potter have never been as good as the books, in my opinion, but the people at WB have always done a great job at putting together the film trailers. This is the very last HP film trailer (unless the series gets a reboot) and it is absolutely fantastic! They show a bit more than the other Deathly Hallows trailers and one scene in particular is totally going to kill me, if done right.

Up until this point, this wordpress blog was temporarily used as a place to vent and post when I had disabled my facebook. I’ve decided to change things up and turn this into a pop culture-y blog, with a hint of random musings. Everyone says to write what you know and what do I know? Movies, television shows, celebrity gossip, unimportant facts, trivia, music, things no one cares about, etc. I’m not going to claim that I know everything there is to know about pop culture, because I definitely know there are people out there who out there who have crazy scary knowledge about all there is to know about pop culture (freaks!…I mean, the people I aspire to be). So here we go, my take films, television shows, music, and more!

I think it would be nice to start with the title of my blog/this post. The quote, “Thank God you’re here…where’ve you been?” is taken from the hilarious Australian show, Summer Heights High. Written and produced by Chris Lilley, the show follows three characters at the school, Mr. G, Jonah Takalua, and Ja’mie King. All three characters are played by Lilley to perfection. As Mr. G, the catty drama teacher at Summer Heights High, Lilley shows off his amazing dancing and singing skills in various musical sequences and rehearsals. The final episode with the musical that Mr.G works on all throughout the series is one of the funniest scenes from the entire show. Lilley is also hilarious as Jonah, a teenage Polynesian boy at the school who has to deal with breakdance fights with year 7s, controlling school officials, and teachers who don’t seem to care. Jonah’s story is the most heartbreaking in the series as we see what happens at school through the eyes of a teenager catalogued as a bully, but may really need a person who believes in him (I swear, it’s not as cheesy as I may it sound!). Perhaps, Lilley’s best character is Ja’mie King – the bitchy, blunt, “private school girl” who is at SHH as an exchange student from Hillford Grammar. Lilley plays Ja’mie perfectly; she is that mean girl at every high school. What makes Ja’mie gut bustingly hilarious, instead of offensive, is the fact that she is so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe anyone would ever say this to another person in real life.

Here are a few clips, introducing each of the characters:

Mr.G

Jonah

Ja’mie

Summer Heights High is one of my absolute favorite shows and I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a show that’s smart, funny, and in some ways, touching. There are 8 episodes and each episode is about 25 minutes so it’s not a huge time commitment either! If, after watching SHH, you want more Chris Lilley (and who wouldn’t after watching that man sing, dance, and have panic attacks), check out his other shows We Can Be Heroes (the origin of Ja’mie King) and his newest project, Angry Boys.

Welcome!

Hi there!
You have stumbled upon my pop culture-y themed blog. Here I will try to put together my thoughts on various aspects of pop culture - television, movies, and music. Hopefully, you like it! Well, actually, if you hate it, that's fine too.
I guess.